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The Office

It is nice being at home on Thursday’s because I don’t have to wait to see the new episode of “The Office.” I was kind of cold on this show at first, but this season has kept getting better and better, so that now it is getting to that coveted “classic series” status – think Seinfeld, News Radio, The Simpsons…

Last night’s episode was the best of the series. Hands down. I cannot remember the last time I laughed out loud every other minute. From the opening “bit” where Michael Scott is messing around with the computer program that converts text to voice, and and makes it say “BOOBS” – to the “Amazing race” (which is something that my Dad would probably make his sales team do…), to Stanley cracking up in the car after Ryan botched the sales meeting… to “You know what they say: Fool me once, strike one, fool me twice…strike three”

Also: the scene when Jim gets out of the car at their sales call and Dwight opens the door and asks for the keys. Jim rolls his eyes a little and asks if he “still does that?” And then Dwight starts “pumping himself up” to Motley Crue while Jim waits by the side of the car.

Also, Andy’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory line was pure gold: “Oompa loompa, doompadee dossum, Dwight is now gone, which is totally awesome. Why is he gone, he was such a nice guy. No, he was not, he was a total douche. Doompadee doom.”

Now, let me rant a little: I was looking to link to NBC’s “two minute” replay to last night’s episode. I click on the link and am taken to a “pop-up” that loads video. So far so good. First, I am forced to sit through a brief commercial… ok, annoying, but standard for a multi-national like NBC. I can ignore it… and then I get the following message “We are Sorry. The video you requested is not available in your area.”

WTF?

I understand that, for some reason, that while US networks provide links to full episodes, these are not available in Canada. Fine. I will torrent your show and you will not make a dime off of me. Yet, what makes me fly into a rage is that the ad is still available to me? I can watch the ad but not the content?

The software that allows for foriegn IP’s to be blocked from connecting to other IP’s was invented in Canada.
I can’t really see a positive purpose to this besides the commercial ones.
I can see lots of censorship happening in the worlds most brutal regimes (North Korea, United States, Iran etc.)
The question I have is this:
Should the Canadian government block the export of technologies that could be used to suppress foreigners by a foreign government?
And it sucks I can’t watch BBC comedies streamed online. Here is the true reason I’m so concerned about freedom.